by Toby Neal
Sophie’s belly clenched. Her mother?
As far as Sophie knew, Pim Wat Smithson was institutionalized in Thailand in an exclusive mental hospital, where she had been installed after her most recent suicide attempt. Her aunt, who kept her informed, had sent monthly progress reports on her mother’s almost catatonic depressive state.
The phone dinged again. “Come alone. Ditch that man with you. And tell no one.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jake glanced over to see that Sophie had withdrawn from him completely. She’d folded her body tightly into her seat and now she stared out the window, holding her phone pressed close. Who had sent her a text she was all but cradling? Was it Alika?
Something had been going on with those two on Kaua’i, he’d bet money on it. Jake squelched his possessive feelings yet again. At least he’d been able to get her all to himself on this trip, away from that gym rat businessman with his chopper and fancy houses.
Sophie had resisted his overtures this morning, and he wasn’t even surprised; what surprised him was how much it hurt even though he’d prepared for it.
She didn’t want to be with him. He knew that, and he’d wanted her too much last night to care.
He’d back off, go as slow as she needed to. He wasn’t the one with wounds and scars. Yeah, he’d fallen for a few women in his time and thought his heart was broken—Tina, who’d cheated on him while he was in Afghanistan, and Debbie who’d refused a ring he’d impulsively offered on one of his leaves—but not a shadow of the suffering Sophie’d experienced. It was understandable that she didn’t want to get into anything after what she’d been through. That psycho husband of hers and five years of abuse. Then she finally dates Alika, and he gets beat to shit. Then her next boyfriend Todd Remarkian gets killed. So even with Assan Ang finally out of the picture, it was no wonder she was afraid to trust that anything good could happen to her.
He’d have to trust enough for both of them.
But at least he had been able to get her to come unglued—several times, in fact. He suppressed a grin—the memory would have to keep him warm until he could get her into bed again.
They ate a silent breakfast in a café at the edge of Hilo, and fed the dogs. Jake busied himself with the local paper, searching for news about missing persons, while Sophie obsessively worked her phone.
At the station, Sophie was all business with Freitan and Wong when they met the detectives in their cubicle.
“We think Chernobiac has partners. We couldn’t call you to update last night due to a lack of phone reception, but his house had a silent alarm we tripped. The responders were not law enforcement, nor any normal security company that we could tell. Their vehicle was an unmarked black Escalade, and they pursued us aggressively.”
Freitan nodded. “Yep. Chernobiac has been making veiled threats that we better let him go, or else. I keep saying, or else what? But he hasn’t said. We did get a search warrant for his house, and with your intel, will take a back-up unit with us when we go. We’re leaving in half an hour.”
“We can help. Save you some time by pointing out where we found the money and other items.” Jake was calm and assertive with Freitan. “We’d like to ride along.”
Freitan gave Jake a once over. “You look a little ragged, my friend. Tough time sleeping?”
“Wouldn’t impair my performance, if that’s what you’re implying,” Jake said. He needed to get a level playing field with this woman, but still hadn’t been able to.
Sophie cleared her throat. “Jake can go with you. I want to spend the morning working in the computer lab. I’m going to be ready to pull together the missing persons research analysis if I have a few more hours to work, and the dogs shouldn’t be left in the car all day again. I’ll take them for a run at the park.”
Freitan glanced back at Jake. “All right then, Soldier Boy. Meet us at our vehicle in twenty. I’ll bring an extra vest for you.” She walked off with Wong in tow.
Jake turned to Sophie. Her face had that neutral, blank look he hated. She had shut down toward him. The wise course was to accept that, and retreat. Come back to fight another day. He smacked his thighs and stood. “Sounds like we have a plan. I’ll help you get the dogs situated.”
They tied both animals under a shady tree behind the building near the dumpsters and gave them water. Sophie held her hand out for the keys. “I want to run to the store and get food for them later. I’d like to use the Jeep.”
“Just don’t get in an accident. You’re not on the paperwork,” Jake said.
Sophie tightened her lips in annoyance at the reminder, but nodded.
He handed her the keys. “See you later.”
He made himself walk to meet Freitan and Wong without looking back. Hopefully, Freitan would behave herself. The thought of a whole day trapped with that woman made him clench his jaw.
“Never give up, never surrender,” he muttered. His mantra had worked in Special Forces, and it could work to deal with Freitan.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sophie alerted mountainous Officer Tito on duty at the watch desk that they had tied their dogs out in back, and asked that if any of the officers headed that way could give them a little attention. Tito set his Sudoku tablet aside, winking broadly at Sophie. “I’ll pass it on. Now they’ll be doing nothing but smoke breaks out back.”
“My partner and I appreciate it. The dogs got used to being with us all the time and now we both have to leave them alone. I’ll be in the computer lab if anyone needs me.” Sophie surrendered her weapon and, carrying her laptop, headed for the back.
As usual, no one was in the lab. The place would be much more useful if the equipment were updated, but Sophie understood the limitations of local budgets. She parked herself at her usual opening between computers, unrolled the Internet cable, plugged it into her laptop, and put on her Bose headphones. Beethoven thundering in her ears, Sophie settled in to some serious data surfing.
The timer she had set on the laptop beeped at eleven a.m., and Sophie startled out of a wired-in trance, checking the wall clock reflexively. It was time to get down to the park and surveille the meeting area her mysterious contact had directed her to.
Only a few people had her latest burner number. Anyone else who had it either had highly superior tracking abilities (like the Ghost) or had obtained the number from one of the few, which automatically meant this was someone she should speak to.
Was this message from Connor? Did he have information about her mother? Was she ready to see him again?
She did want to speak to anyone who had any knowledge of her mother . . . but only Connor, or her father, would be at all likely to have any such knowledge.
No way to find out but to go.
Packing up, Sophie considered why she hadn’t told Jake about this meeting.
She didn’t talk about her family. In some ways, it was really that simple. Her father was a very private man with a public, high responsibility job as an ambassador. The Smithsons told no one their business, and that went for her mother’s well-connected family as well. And later, she’d married a gangster. Secrecy was an ingrained habit, and anything to do with her mother was not for anyone but family to know.
Pim Wat’s perfect oval face appeared in Sophie’s memory. Her mother’s drooping mouth and shadowed eyes were Sophie’s most familiar impressions of her. But Sophie hadn’t actually seen her in nine years.
Her mother had attended her wedding in Thailand, of course, having helped broker the arrangements that married Sophie to Assan Ang. Sophie hadn’t known then that it would be a year later before Assan, pressured by her father, had allowed one visit home to Thailand when Sophie was twenty. In the entire week they’d visited, he had never let Sophie out of his sight to have a private moment with her mother. Her father, divorced for many years from her mother by then, was between postings in the United States.
Sophie still remembered trying to get her mother alone to tell her about Assan’s abu
se. In spite of her pleading eyes and anxious plucking at her mother’s sleeve, Pim Wat had been indifferent, closed in on herself, and had made no effort to respond to Sophie’s frantic whispers that they needed to speak alone.
Sophie hadn’t seen her mother since. It was strange to realize it had been so long.
Faced with this mysterious message, she realized that part of her was waiting, braced to hear the news that her mother had died.
And maybe she had. Maybe that’s what this was about: someone wanted to meet her in person to tell her that Pim Wat had died.
Her body disengaged from her mind, moving on autopilot, Sophie left the station, loaded the dogs in the Jeep, set the GPS for Hilo Bay downtown, and drove through brisk midday traffic to the waterfront park.
The sun was bright on the ruffled waters of the bay. A jetty jutted into the horseshoe of water, and a little old man walked along it, jigging with a bamboo fishing pole. Neatly trimmed palm trees swayed in a light breeze. Mynah birds, their bright yellow beaks contrasting with dark plumage, hopped and foraged on a vast, velvety lawn bisected by concrete walking trails and benches for sitting.
Sophie was already dressed for action in a pair of nylon running pants, athletic shoes, a sports bra and tank top. She drank some water, put the dogs on their leashes, and set off at a brisk jog at eleven fifteen a.m.
She circumnavigated the park, billed hat pulled low and eyes moving, searching for anything out of place or familiar; anything that would give her a clue about what to expect.
Tank was not used to being on a leash, and kept charging off to try to chase mynah birds or a spare frisbee. Controlling the two unruly dogs kept Sophie more than busy, but she hoped that made her look like just another local girl out for a run with her badly behaved pets.
She saw nothing that seemed out of place. Besides the old fisherman on the jetty, young families with children clustered around a central play structure. An old woman sat on one of the benches with a newspaper open in front of her. A lone exerciser did squats and lunges near a pull up bar, and a pair of tourists walked hand-in-hand.
Tank made a particularly egregious bolt for freedom and dragged Sophie, stumbling, off of the concrete walk. Ginger took advantage of the revolt to tangle her leash with Tank’s.
“Nine headed hydra from hell!” Sophie exclaimed, wrestling the frolicking dogs. “Foul-smelling offspring of Bastet!”
“Your language has certainly gotten more colorful over the years,” came a voice from the nearby bench.
The tone was dryly ironic.
The language was perfectly enunciated Thai.
The voice was her mother’s.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The trouble with going on a police raid was that Jake, as a civilian, had to stay behind.
He sat in the armored, bulletproof SUV parked in the driveway of Chernobiac’s house, grinding his teeth, and metaphorically twiddling his thumbs—which meant cleaning his gun.
He had spent the drive to Ocean View Terrace drawing an interior schematic of the floor plan of the house as he had memorized it, notating the whereabouts of Chernobiac’s stash behind the laundry hamper in the linen closet. His crude map had been plucked from his fingers as they drove up to the dwelling.
Freitan gave him a predatory smirk, waggling the map. “Sit tight, honeybuns. We’ll be back soon enough to have you for lunch.”
Did the woman ever say anything that wasn’t sexist or condescending? Humiliated and seething, Jake watched as the detectives retrieved the key from the place where he had described it and entered the house. They were back in less than ten minutes, just as he put away his weapon.
Freitan’s brow was puckered in an angry frown. Wong shook his head at Jake as they reached the vehicle.
“Cash is gone. No signs of forced entry. I think you were right; this guy had partners. They must’ve picked up the money when they chased you guys off.”
Freitan threw herself into the front seat. “We still have to go back in for a deeper search, looking for anything pertaining to the missing persons. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and Chernobiac kept some kind of record or souvenirs from the victims. You can help, now that we know the place is clear. Wouldn’t want to endanger a civilian.” She handed Jake a pair of latex gloves. “Glove up.” She bounced her brows. “We might need to go in deep.”
Jake rolled his eyes. She was ridiculous, and any sort of response just made her worse.
He followed the detectives back into the house, trying to put himself in the mind of that squirrely, pudgy little gamer. Where did a gamer keep his treasures?
Where his most prized possession was. So he could keep an eye on it; be close to it.
Jake headed straight upstairs to the computer area in Chernobiac’s bedroom. The young man had two computer rigs parked below a simple table used as a desk. Jake moved the chair out and crawled underneath. He took his own rolled-up fabric tool kit out of a cargo pocket. Inside was an all-purpose utility tool, a set of lock picks, and a graduated row of Phillips head screwdrivers. Jake chose one of the smallest of the screwdrivers and went to work on the back of the computers.
The first was filled with nothing but what he expected: the innards of a computer. Wires, a fan, several stacked hard drives wired together.
Jake screwed the back on and went to the next one.
“Nice view.” Freitan’s voice from behind Jake made him recoil and bang his head on the bottom of the desk. He swore ripely.
“Nice cussing there, Soldier Boy. Good idea, checking in his computers.” She squatted next to Jake at the corner of the desk. “We’re on the same team, you know.”
Jake rubbed the top of his head. “I’m trying to remember that. You’re not making it easy.”
“I’m just a girl who knows what she wants.”
Jake could feel Freitan looking at his body. Down on his hands and knees, trying to unscrew a computer from a weird angle, his ass in the air, Jake felt vulnerable. Shit. He was never making an inappropriate crack about a woman’s body again; it sucked to be seen as a piece of meat.
Jake focused on the tiny screws. The back came off, and he peered inside. “I think we just hit gold, Detective.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sophie’s body froze. Her mouth fell ajar and her eyes were wide as she turned to face her mother. Tank and Ginger dragged her toward this new person for enthusiastic greetings, and that gave Sophie a moment to recover her composure.
Pim Wat was hidden under bulky layers: a conical straw sun hat, a long khaki parka, loose, wide-legged pants. Her shoes were orthopedic, and though her face was still beautiful and unlined, a sense of age was conveyed by hunched posture and the way her gloved hands gripped the knob of a bamboo cane.
“Mother. What are you doing here?”
“You are the only one with a right to call me that.” Pim Wat gave a brisk nod. Her voice was commanding. “Deal with those unmannerly animals, Malee, and come sit with me.”
She must be dreaming this. She’d wake up in the morning and shake her head over the whole ridiculous scenario she’d imagined—but no, it was too complete, right down to the details like the fact that only her mother called Sophie by her Thai middle name.
Sophie tied the dog’s leashes around a nearby metal pole. She took out the collapsible watering bowl from her jacket and opened it, pouring water from her canteen into the bowl. She left the dogs lapping thirstily and went to sit beside her mother, near the edge of the bench.
Pim Wat had set aside her cane. She kept her gaze on the newspaper she held. “We cannot appear to be conversing.”
“Why not?” The shock of disbelief was giving way to anger as Sophie leaned over the bench, beside her mother, stretching her calves. “What the hell is going on? Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital?” Sophie’s Thai was rusty, and emotion made her trip over the words, her tongue tangling on the smooth vowels she hadn’t had occasion to speak in so long.
“You must not let your feelings rul
e you.”
“You are one to talk, Mother. Your feelings ruled you all of my life.”
“That is what I let you believe.”
A deep shiver passed over Sophie. She pressed her hand over her chest, feeling her heart lurch. “I do not know what you mean.”
“I’m not who you think I am.”
Sophie pressed harder against her heart, because it was galloping now. She couldn’t look at the petite figure beside her on the bench. What was her mother trying to tell her? She focused on the only thing that made any sense. “Why now, Mother?”
“Because this is the first time I could find you and get you alone. Everything that I planned with Assan Ang went so badly wrong.”
“You planned my suffering?” Sophie wrapped her hands around her waist as she turned on the bench. “You gave me to him. You, Mother.”
“I know. I am sorry for how it turned out. But there was nothing to be done. I couldn’t get to you, once he had you. Then you fled and joined the FBI, and during that time I was . . . unavailable.”
Sophie focused on breathing, willing her logical mind to take over and sort through the confusion of jumbled emotions. “Perhaps it would be best if you just told me what you came to tell me.”
“That’s my Sophie. You were always such a good girl.”
Sophie tightened her arms around herself. Yes. Good girl. That’s what she had always tried to be for her mother, so she didn’t cause more distress, so she didn’t send her mother into a downward spiral.
So her mother didn’t kill herself because of something Sophie had done.
The dark, unspoken threat of suicide had hung there, a guillotine over Frank and Sophie’s heads. She’d been relieved to be sent to boarding school.
Sophie waited. Pim Wat would tell her what she wanted in her own good time. Her mother was not someone who could be rushed.